Herd That (The Valentine Boys 1)

I took a hit off my slushee beer that tasted faintly of blue raspberry, and kept talking.

“That day, I was being punished,” I whispered. “I was sent to my room by my mother because I’d broken her favorite butter churn.” I swallowed the spit that was gathering in my mouth at an alarming rate. “I was the last one my father got ahold of out of the brothers.” I squeezed my eyes tighter shut as if that would ward off the bad memories that had been assaulting my head all morning. “Dad came in there and snatched me up by my hair, and I thought, ‘oh, fuck. He was really pissed about that butter churn.’ But then he dragged me out to the living room. My hair was really long, and the way he was dragging me, it was kind of hard to see because my hair kept falling into my eyes. But when I finally sat down and was able to sweep it to the side, my father was zip tying me to that chair, and I realized that my brothers were all there, too.”

I felt Codie’s cool hand slip into mine, and only then realized that we’d stopped halfway down a dirt driveway.

I thought for a second about not telling her what I was thinking but then decided to hell with it.

She needed to know.

She needed to realize what she was going to get into when it came to me—to the Valentine family.

“He shot each one of us,” I said softly. “Rain and Dell died. I can still see their lifeless bodies when I close my eyes. See the pool of blood on the floor. I can tell you each and every crack in the kitchen that it seeped between.”

Her hand squeezed shut. “They didn’t die at first, though. He shot all of us. Started with the youngest, then went up from there. Shot me in the stomach. I remember that it burned. But at first, I wasn’t sure what happened. Honestly, I just remembered them all screaming, and I was confused… then he set my mother on fire.”

I swallowed hard as those memories assaulted me. “I must’ve screamed at some point. Later, my throat was raw as hell as if I’d screamed… but I don’t remember doing it. He doused her in gasoline, then while she was still alive, lit a match and tossed it at her.” I licked my lips. “Georgia managed to get free, but still to this day I don’t remember it. One second I was sitting there, bleeding from my belly, and the next she was yanking me outside with Banks and Callum at our heels.”

“You don’t remember anything else?” she asked.

I knew what she was asking. My father killing himself. My siblings dying.

“No,” I admitted. “The therapist I saw for a couple of years after the incident? She thought maybe I was subconsciously suppressing those memories.”

She blew out a breath. “I can’t tell if that’s good or bad,” she admitted.

I shrugged. “It is what it is. The therapist thinks that I might remember it one day, but only when I feel ‘safe.’” I paused. “Her words, not mine.”

She smirked. “Do the rest of your siblings remember?”

I nodded. “Banks and Callum do. So does Georgia. Darby? He’s never really talked about it, and all of us are too fucked up to ask. So, we’re not sure. I’m sure he remembers something, though he was the youngest of the surviving siblings. There’s no telling.”

She shook her head, then clenched my hand tight before letting it go.

The truck started forward once again, and I thought about what I’d just told her.

She hadn’t freaked out, nor had she given me false platitudes.

It was what it was, and there wasn’t a single thing in the world that would make it better. Telling me it would ‘be okay’ like so many others had might’ve made me a little brassed off.

But she hadn’t said those words.

She hadn’t said anything, really.

And that was what made me feel kind of happy.

She didn’t want to lie.

Because it would never be okay.

I was never going to be okay.

I still had nightmares about that night.

Would forever have nightmares if it continued as my life had been previously.

“Where are we?” I asked when we rounded the corner to a small clearing where a rather large house sat in the middle of the open field.

“I have a friend,” she said as she got out. “I texted him while we were in the meeting with your ex-lawyer to tell him we were coming over.”

I blinked.

“Okay,” I drawled. “Why?”

She gestured for me to get out, so I did, not thinking to question her at all.

“Because I feel like we can use his help,” she said as a large man came out onto the front porch and crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “That’s Todd Masterson.”